University of Illinois e-mails show how clout got a job

When University of Illinois board Chairman Niranjan Shah asked for help in getting his future son-in-law a job in 2007, Chancellor Richard Herman and other top campus officials responded by essentially creating a personal job-placement service, new records show.

The Tribune reported Tuesday that in response to Shah's involvement, university officials found Maarten de Jeu a job. The new e-mails, released after the original story, reveal the extent of their efforts.

Led by Herman, officials shopped him around the university and in the private sector. They created a position without conducting the usual search, secured a work visa for the Dutch citizen and paid him $115,000 -- more than most employees with the same title.

When it appeared they might have trouble getting de Jeu a visa, Herman suggested admitting him to a PhD program in business, to which he hadn't even applied. The chancellor dipped into campus reserves to pay his salary because the position wasn't funded in the department that hired him.

"I would like to thank you for your help with Marteen (sic)," Shah wrote to Herman, the Urbana-Champaign campus' top official, on May 23, 2007. "We need to make this happen."

Herman replied: "I am happy to help."

The documents sometimes seem at odds with previous statements provided to the Tribune by Shah and de Jeu about the circumstances surrounding the hire.

Shah had said he "encouraged" the university to hire de Jeu, now 34, an "exceptionally well-qualified" applicant who graduated first in his class from the executive MBA program at Oxford University.

De Jeu had said that nobody was involved in his hiring and that the interview process was similar to others he has had.

But e-mails show that de Jeu had direct contact with the chancellor, the business school dean and other senior administrators in the process of securing the job. Herman even offered de Jeu his cell phone number.

De Jeu thanked Herman in a June 24, 2007, e-mail:

"You very kindly positioned it as an opportunity that would allow me to make the transition and I sincerely appreciate your offer and assistance. I also wanted to make sure that you are aware that my interest goes beyond 'just securing my transition to the US.' "

De Jeu told The Tribune he had other job offers that would have provided a similar salary, benefits and a work visa.

E-mails show one senior administrator said he urged colleagues to "move with great haste," including paying an additional $1,000 for expedited visa processing. De Jeu was offered a job in September 2007 in the university's Division of Business and Industry Services, a Naperville-based unit that provides consulting and training services to businesses.

De Jeu married Shah's daughter in February 2008 and left the university job that August, after about 10 months on the job.

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